I'll spare the story of the bus full of Norwegians that brought us to the venues, but it's fair enough to say we were the ONLY western hemispherians we came across for quite some time. I guess you could call it immersion learning, but it went really smoothly nonetheless - not so much as a look from everyone else. Guess we fit in. So up we go into the mountains on day 1, with tickets in hand (they're really cool, you should see them) for women's Super-G and 2-man bobsled finals.A word about alpine skiing. Like you, we had to learn what the different skiing races were about. When we bought tickets (rather easily, mind you, not like for Vancouver...) we were so excited to go we didn't really know the details. So here's a quick primer for you non-skiers. There are 4 types of alpine ski events, in descending (aha) order of length, speed, and curves: Downhill, Super-Giant Slalom ("Super-G"), Giant Slalom ("GS"), and Slalom. The downhill race involves the entire height of the mountain and skiers attain speeds of 80-90 mph going downhill in a straight line over ice. The slalom is what you'd expect: short race with lots and lots of back and forth around flags (or poles) and much less forward speed - it's a 'technical' race as opposed to a 'speed' race like the Downhill. The other two races round out the middle of the extremes. Each have their own difficulties and skills necessary to complete. (Personally, I think downhill racers have a death wish. Or too much time on their hands.)
So on our first day we were pumped to make it to the women's Super-G. We survived the bus full of Vikings and the long walk to the lift, with way too much time to spare. But that's okay, because we got to sit back and watch the professionals show up. The easiest analogy to our side of the pond is NASCAR fans. Think of NASCAR fans that go to all the races, have huge tailgate parties, and are waaay into their driver. In Europe (where they ski, anyway), it's the same thing. Traveling hordes of fans follow their favorite skiers around the FIS circuit, and they come prepared. Brass instruments. 
The biggest damn cowbells you've ever seen in your life: 
I don't know what cows look like in Austria, but for sure I don't want to find out. We'd never seen anything like this before - whole bands, banners, and who knows what else these troupes brought under those alpine costumes. We stood back and watched the procession of rabid EuroSki fans before us, in awe.Finally we made it into the stands. Hey, we're at the Olympics! (Or as they say in Italian, Olimpici. Actually, we don't know for sure, since we made that word up. It's pronounced o-LIM-pi-chi.)
So have you ever made it to the airport with way too much time before your flight? Check. Ever have a flight canceled due to weather? Double check. Can you see the snow falling in the picture? It got worse. Much worse. A freakin' blizzard blew in and the race was postponed to a time we couldn't make. Our first Olympics experience was a bust. But we got a great pic of Kathy waving the colors, so it wasn't entirely a lost cause....We had more time to kill before the next event: 2 man bobsled finals (I refuse to call it by its more refined name: bobsleigh. Doesn't sound cool enough for me, and this is my blog.) We had some food, some cider, some more cider, and tooled around waiting for a few hours. Fortunately, the venue was halfway back down the mountain, so we didn't have far to go. (This is about when we came across other Americani for the first time. Believe me, they were easy to spot, long before they could be heard....)
Of course, how do the mad mavens of the mountains kill time in the Alps? Bring out another band of course! I swear they just popped up out of the ground - but they were sooo much cooler than anything we've got over here. Call it the alpine spirit, with a touch of von Tramp as well. It definitely helped us get back into the proper festive spirit. That, plus some spiced cider. Yeah, probably the cider. 
Why else would kindergarten-style dancing break out, other than to fend off the bone-numbing cold that night? I considered jumping in with Kathy, but then I'd be unable to take pictures of all those people who were certainly enjoying themselves. I'm quite certain we were the only Americani there (again). But that didn't matter at all - I think we all spoke a common language that night, not to be too sappy about it. Good - Olympic Spirit back on track. Thank you, o ye fickle gods of Mt. Olympus.... This day is yet salvageable. 
Okay, back to the bobsled. No doubt you're at least superficially familiar with it: 2 or 4 man teams get in a fancy sled and slide down a tube of ice. Times over four heats are added, and the fastest overall time wins. Simple, right? (The Jamaicans once thought so). What you could never appreciate on TV is how insanely steep these tracks are. How else could these suicide sleds reach 90 mph? I really had no idea the scale of this event until we got there and saw it for ourselves - here's the same track a few days later, from a perspective a bit farther away to (maybe) give you a sense of scale. 
We had scored 'prime' seats for this event, which seemed pretty cool until we actually went to claim our seats and saw what 'prime' really meant: a grandstand seat right at the finish line. What? You kidding? You want me to see the end of the race? Say it with me: au contraire, mon fraire.... No way is that going to stand. So we left our 'prime' seats and moseyed back up the track until we found a promising section in the 'standing room only' section. 
Yes, this will do right here. Just fine, thank you very much. 
And the crowds hadn't yet started to show up, so all the better for us to claim our spot on the railing. Yes, the railing abutted right onto the track. I could spit without trying and hit the track rather easily (it froze immediately). Actually, I had some unease we would actually be a bit too close and at some risk of injury should anything go wrong. These fears were unfounded, though, in that the Jamaicans did not advance from the preliminary heats the night before. But I really ought to mention it again: we were right next to the freakin' track. This is going to be FUN! 
So finally the sleds began coming down the hill. It went something like this: watch a giant screen with the clock running and a graphic of the course showing where the sled was. Hear a low rumble for about 2 or 3 seconds, rapidly getting louder. See a brilliant flash of light as the sled comes into view around the turn. Feel a shockwave and briefly go deaf. Scream in absolute sheer delight. And try very, very hard to follow the sled down the track to the finish. This is a public blog so I'll spare the colorful language, but it was $%&@ unbelievable. I can come up with no words to try and give you the sense of what it looks and feels like when the sled zings by at 90 mph literally 5 or 6 feet away from you. Visceral is about as good as I can do. Jaw dropping also comes to mind. (I knew I should have taken English comp in college....)The action was so fast (and my camera was so crappy, AND my fingers were so frozen), I had a devil of a time actually catching the sleds as they flew past us. There are quite a few pics with empty track, and half a bobsled either half-entering or half-leaving the frame. Eventually I got my timing down and here are a few results. ZAM!
I got really lucky and got one behind Kathy as it went by, only later realizing it was a white sled that is somewhat difficult to see in the photo. KAPOW!
And finally my persistence paid off (that and changing my perspective to actually have a chance of catching it full-on). I claim no skill but only extreme luck in timing for this last shot. AND it also happened to be one of the two US sleds, so that's extra cool to boot. We got it framed and it sits proudly on our wall-of-fame. 
With one word I can thus summarize my thoughts on bobsledders: Suicidal. You have to be #$%^ nuts to get in one of these and hurtle down an icy chute at reckless speeds. But it sure was an amazing thing to see in real life.Ok, on with the book report.... Day 2 brought us to the other ski event we had tickets for: men's Giant Slalom.
GS is a two-race event, with times added up. The same slope is used for both, but the flags are repositioned. Skiers get NO opportunity to practice the course, so when they come down it's the first time they see it. Kinda adds to the excitement. And the good news was that the snow from the night before had stopped, and we were (finally) welcomed by brilliantly blue skies. 
That giant structure is the back of the stands, which in essence were one giant scaffold about 15-stories tall (guess where our seats were....) But what a view! 
We could see maybe half the course from up that high, which was amazing. And for the parts we couldn't see, the giant screen on the left gave us the same view that TV audiences had. In fact, if you look closely at this picture of the screen, you can see when the TV crews panned back at the crowd. Can you see the flag? Who do you think that is? (And who's the dork on her right taking a picture??) 
Hey, we're on TV!! (not really, the race hadn't started yet).... Doesn't matter - we're on the jumbotron! Here are some of the racers coming down, though I only remember the last two of them: 
Here is the 'famous' Hermann Maier from Austria, the "Herminator." (Check out his infamous crash in Nagano in 1998 here.) He is one badass skier - one of the best ever.
Following him is the 'famous' American, Bode Miller, an insanely gifted skier cursed with incredible inconsistency. Guess how his race went that day.... 
Not a good day, but who am I to say? I'd never make it out of the gate without crying for mama the whole way down. Like with bobsledders, with one word I can describe world-class skiers: Supremely Athletic (okay 2 words). The pictures don't give them any justice, and the video here barely helps to convey the supreme strength of these skiers making impossibly sharp turns on an incredibly steep slope (MUCH steeper than the pics or TV shots convey.)[NOTE: in some Firefox browsers, the play button might not work. If this happens to you, reload this page and it should work just fine - let me know if you have problems]
It's amazing how the announcer bounced back and forth between languages so easily. You only get Italian and English on this clip, but he also spoke French, and could bounce between all 3 with amazing speed.
There's one more thing I'd like to share about this event before I finish this posting. We were witness to something absolutely remarkable; in fact, it almost defies words. And it wasn't about amazing skill, or a really fast athlete. It's about a man named Mathieu Razanakolona, from the skiing powerhouse country of Madagascar. Yes, that Madagascar. He was Madagascar's only representative in those games, and Madagascar's first ever Winter Olympian. Mr. Razanakolona was atrocious. He was horrible. He was one of the very worst skiers in the whole group that came down the mountain that day. He couldn't catch an edge. He fell over, and over, and over. He missed gates left and right. But, somehow, he marched back up and went around them in proper direction. With each stumble the crowd gasped and became silent as he picked himself up and kept going. Through nothing but unshakable persistence and the fiercest of determination, Mr. Razanakolona somehow crossed the finish line, upright, and earned 43rd spot in the final standings. The applause and standing ovation he received lasted over 2 minutes. People were crying (they really were), unable to contain their tears overjoyed at his impossible finish. In my entire life I have never seen anything like what this man did. He could have given up at many points along the race, like so many others much better than him did. He was expected to do very poorly, very likely to finish dead last, if at all. But none of that mattered to him. Although he represented Madagascar, he was skiing for himself, and was not going to be denied his due finish on that day. And finish he did. And so maybe you'll forgive me for saying that even in the hardest of times, I sometimes think back to Mr. Razanakolona's determination, and what he accomplished that day, despite all the odds. And it continues to inspire me to this day. I am absolutely certain that if you had been there, you'd be just as impressed as we were. To this day Kathy and I still talk about it.
Okay, enough jibber jab, let's get to the ultra-fun stuff. Ski Jumping!
This event was probably the highlight of our entire Olympics. Ski jumping has had a special mystique for me ever since I was a kid and saw the famous ABC Wide World of Sports "Agony of Defeat" video every Saturday (look up the immortal Vinko Bogataj and you'll see what I mean). We made it to the last of the ski jumping events: team competition (combined scores of 4 jumpers from each team) jumping off the 'large' hill, as opposed to the 'small' hill. 
Of course, there's a party going on even before we get there. This pair of Germans had a hefty head start on us: 
Check out the kickass headwear with eagles on skis. And not to be outdone, the Olympics mascots showed up, just like Mickey and Minnie at Disney. Is it me, or does the one on the right look a little like Cheech Marin? 
So if you hadn't already picked up on this thread already, the Olympics is really an excuse to come out and celebrate with a bunch of strangers. From other countries. Everyone's pretty merry. Check out the lady holding the American flag in the left corner (you might recognize her...) 
Here are some really happy Slovenians. 
And the Norwegians took the cake. Perhaps because they were the most used to the cold...it was freakin' freezing that night, like single digits. Whatever 'woohoo!' sounds like in Norwegian, they were screaming it.
Okay, let's get to the meat of the jumping; first, a short lesson in geometry. Each jumper comes off the start hill with significant speed (60+ mph), launches horizontally, and then free falls in a parabolic arch, carried by his forward momentum as gravity pulls him down. The freefall lasts several seconds, carrying him hundreds of feet down and hundreds of feet forward. Here's the really amazing part: the slope of the hill is an exact match of the jumper's arc of flight, so the jumper is never really more than 5-10 feet of the ground at any time - the hill slope 'falls' at the same rate as the jumper. At some point, the 'K' point, the inflection of the curve changes, and the slope 'comes up' to meet the still falling jumper. Any jump going further than the hill's K point (each hill is different) is considered a really good jump. Here's a good example: 
You can see the first red line, here marked K 125, or 125 meters in vertical distance from launch point to hill inflection. By convention, K + 15 meters equals the 'Hill Size.' (Really HUGE hills can reach 200 meters!) This hill here is a 140 meter hill, which still counts as a rather large hill. The landing target zone is marked for the jumpers, which you can easily see above. So all a jumper has to do is zip down the start hill, gain significant speed, launch off the horizontal edge at the end, free fall in a ballistic parabola down the hill, (all the while adjusting his aerodynamic shape to maximize his forward carry), 
aim for the landing, 
and put his skis down at the last possible moment and not crash. 
That's it! Of course, pictures do not give it justice, but lucky for you, I shot some clips so you can see for yourself. You can clearly see how the jumper falls down the hill 'with' the slope. (If you speak German, you might also get a chuckle at the end of this one...)Same thing, though a bit further than the first one (actually, this is a really good jump). Check out Kathy's cameo at the end of the clip.
Okay, this next one is kinda neat. Remember the band that showed up earlier in the skiing venue? They also show up for ski jumping. (Austrians really REALLY get into their ski competitions). So in this clip, one of the Austrian skiers (they were ALL REALLY GOOD - in fact they won the gold) flies on down, and right on cue, as he lands on the snow...
Okay, final clip. This jumper had won the individual gold the night before for Norway, and had a pretty awesome jump here (actually was the second longest jump of the night).
If bobsledders are suicidal, and skiers are athletic, ski jumpers are...simply artistic. Supremely sublime. Unbelievably cool.
And after 2 days at the Olympics, we felt like we'd gotten a pretty fair slice of why the Olympics are such a big deal. I hope you have at least a sense of how momentous it was for us to get lucky enough and go; it's fun for me to try to approximate it here. Once is definitely not enough (hence the disappointment in getting shut out for Vancouver). There will be other ones, though I suspect we'll miss the ones in Sochi, Russia in 2014. I hope you've enjoyed this!
Coming soon: reflections on Normandy.
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